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#anyway bunch of cool mods came out so now i kinda wanna play again
blazingflareon · 3 years
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happy n7day!! drew my vanguard indigo bc i miss him lmao,,
this is actually kinda similar to something ive drawn before but whatever i dig the aesthetic gklhfghl thank u mass effect for the space magic
just fyi bc i havent posted him in a while: indigo is an oc - he's commander shepard's younger brother from my sibling au :> i played him in game and got super attached but he ended up very different in my head and didnt quite fit in the game anymore and my solution was apparently ‘somewhat rebellious younger brother’ lmao
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ask-edd · 4 years
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((how was meeting cl and getting to visit her home? im super curious!!)))
((Off the bat this is gonna be long, so I’ll put it under a read more))
YO IT WAS SO FUCKEN COOL
Okay so first she and SL came up to my place for the weekend, and initially, that’s all it was supposed to be.  We hung out, I got to make them food, we watched Youtube together, we helped my mom try to put together a fuckhuge puzzle, we stayed up late just talking and watching youtube videos, it was great!!
And then the night before they had to leave, we’re watching one of my dad’s favorite movies, I realize that I kinda really don’t want the weekend to end.  There’s still so much for us to talk about and do ;-;
I text CL as we’re watching the movie, and it dawns on me that, had we planned a bit better, I totally could’ve gone home with them for the week and then my parents could come pick me up the following weekend!  I message CL about it and next thing I know, my mom’s telling me she can give me some money and meet them halfway the following Monday!
So the next day, we’re off!  It’s a 6 hour drive, but it didn’t feel that long.  We get to CL’s place and I get to meet her sweetie pets, Xena and Clover!  Both v good gorls!!  And I find out I have to sleep on a paper thin futon that hurts my hips but that’s fine, we kept adding to it over the days so it wouldn’t hurt as bad
But ye the following days I got to try so many things!  I got to play a Switch for the first time, I started playing Pokemon Shield, I got to go to like, 3 different Hot Topics and Spencers and such, I got to try stuff like mochi, bean buns, takoyaki, boba tea, etc, I got to meet one of CL and SL’s friends (she pierced my ears and we got drunk together, she’s cool) We went to a comic book store and a computer store and a Mod Pizza and a legit ramen place and stuff, it was so cool!
Fucken special shout out to SL for being like, legit one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met- the dude can play guitar, he knows sign language, he was my glasses the whole time cause every time we went to a restaurant, he had to read the menu for it cause I can’t fuckin see, he let me watch a shitload of anime, he very kindly bought me some checker pattern socks, he was always so sweet and considerate, and he was the one who drove us fucking everywhere bc CL and I are gays who cannot drive
So yeah mad props to SL
And CL herself is so,,, cute,,,,,,,  like irl she does this thing when she talks where she puts her finger up to her chin, idk if it’s an anime thing, a sign language thing, or just something cute to do but it’s fucken adorable and I love it.  Plus her hair is so fluffy and curly!!  I love!!  She also wore my hoodie a whole bunch and even my hat at one point and I just <3  Plus she gave me headpats and hugs and snugs and liddol smooches and my touchstarved ass already misses it
Oh yeah fucken- three days after I left, my mom texts me asking if I wanna come home early and that she misses me and such, and then two days after that,k she texts and says she can send me money and I can stay another two weeks if it’s okay with CL and SL, which was confusing, but I later found out why she changed so suddenly
This paragraph is kinda sad, so maybe skip it if you don’t wanna read sad shit.  But anyway my mom tells me when we were on our way home that she was suddenly okay with me staying bc at home, I just exist.  I go through the motions day in and day out, doing the same stuff and living in my bedroom.  I don’t do anything really, I just exist.  That’s it.  But out with CL and SL, I’m trying and experiencing new things and talking and laughing all day and night and I’m genuinely happy for once.  My mom realized that and figured that, even though she missed me, it’d be better for me to stay longer.  And she was right.  I forgot what being sad or bored felt like for almost a whole month.  But now that I’m home, I remember.  I’m silent, my default face is a frown, everything is the same.  I try to show my parents my cool neon Eddsworld sign I made with the neon stuff SL gave me, and all they can manage is a “cool” or a “mmhm” and that’s it.  No happiness, no enthusiasm, nothing.  I was bright and happy for almost a whole month, but now I’m back to being a dull gray.
Anyway, tl;dr it was a fucken hoot and I really hope they can come out again for September for my birthday
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c7thetumbler · 6 years
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Quick Game Reviews: What I played 2018
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I’m gonna go ahead and do this for the whole year, which includes games that WEREN’T released this year, but I played this year. I also made this throughout the year, so most the opinions were right after I played it and if it’s been updated further might not include that in my blurb.
I needed to type and felt like I needed to make something. This might motivate me I suppose. Let’s get started
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DOOM 2016 [PC]
I grew up on Pokemon, Mario, and Doom II. I couldn’t play it until I got my new computer this year so yeah way too late. This is a pretty solid game, though thanks to all of the bonuses and honestly nearly intrusive leveling up system kinda stepped in the way of the raw combat. It’s obviously my choice, but I felt encouraged to spend a lot of time exploring areas I’d already cleared rather than run and gun.
That being said, I still loved it. The secrets were, for the most part, really clever and fun anyway and the combat is delicious. I would strongly recommend this
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A Hat in Time + Seal the Deal DLC [PC]
I love this game. A lot. It’s really cute and looks really good, it’s got a ton of charm, and it’s honestly a very good time overall. I 100% the base game last year when it first came out, and I would highly recommend to fans of 3D platformers, and still worth a try if you’re on the fence on them. The mod support is also great that it’s in there and I want to try that a lot. however the DLC...
So the new level is pretty short and while it’s fun, it’s not as good as the other levels. The characters (I think) are really cute and the charm is all there and that great, but it has all of 3 levels, and 2 of them are exploring the exact same places (the boat) and the 3rd is a nice twist on that, but other than that it’s pretty barren. The time rifts were fun as well, but alone... eh. The Death Wish portion, that is the super hard challenge mode...
... is not good. Obviously my opinion, and I might be missing the point, but after having been frustrated over and over and over again, the game itself is just not tight or clean enough to warrant it. My backing for this is that a large portion of the challenges rely on originally unintended level geometry or quirky mechanics in order to complete, and having challenges that require you to be in the know about these honestly inconsistent “quirks” is just not good. Specific examples: the ice hat giving you a small boost to avoid jumping in challenges is alright but fluctuates in how much height it gives you a lot, the challenges around the train chase still have the wonky hitboxes that do not line up with what’s still on screen, and the parade challenge has an invisible hitbox on the main platform that can kill runs. In short If you have found you love the main game and are a bit of a masochist, go for the DLC.
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Pokémon Ultra Sun [3DS]
This is more or less just a revisit of the same generation with some very minor changes. The story changes take the focus away from Lillie and Lusamine (and as a result how interesting the former and evil the latter are) and places it on Necrozma and Ultra Beasts. I really like what they did with Necrozma, but overall it feels like a lot less. And while the Rainbow Rocket post game was nice and fun nostalgia, it’s still missing a solid post game like B2W2 or Gen II had. 
Ultra Wormholes are cool though, and all the good mechanics from SM are still there, so honestly I would recommend this if you haven’t played gen 7 and like Pokémon.
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Hey! Pikmin [3DS]
It’s awful. I can’t think of a reason to pick this up.
I can rant about this for years, but it basically got the Zip Lash/ Sticker Star treatment: it took a franchise known for something and made it something else that was bad. It’s an incredibly slow puzzle “platformer” where you have to collect a bunch of treasure using pikmin you find in the level, it’s laggy even on a n3DS, and even though the point of the game is to collect enough treasure to leave, if you do that they’re all like “by the way, you still have to beat the final boss” so the entire auto-collecting side game you put your pikmin into is entirely pointless. This is honestly the worst 3DS game I played this year.
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Hollow Knight [PC]
So I’m normally not that great with the games-that-are-pretty-dang-hard, and this was no exception. That said however, I did get pretty far (probably) before I got to a boss fight I just couldn’t beat (It was an onslaught of rolling knights in the raining city or something, it’s been a while). And after that I tried finding more power-ups and stuff to help, but I had to set it down after getting bottlenecked there. That being said, I can very easily see why people like this hardcore metroid-vania platformer, and would still recommend it if you’re into the Dark Souls style of high difficulty and mechanical mastery in other genres.
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Axiom Verge [PC]
This is another Metroid-style game. I really liked this one as well, especially how its power-ups weren’t the traditional “You jump higher now” traversal power-ups. It really has a nice atmosphere and theme that still feels alien and metroidy while also feeling like the glitchy world by giving you weapons and movement abilities that let you glitch and change the environment around you. I really liked it! My only real complaint is the bosses get really challenging through a result of eventually figuring out what weapon and strategy is was designed for, and there are some areas that I was completely lost trying to find where I was going next, but all in all it’s pretty solid.
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Octodad: Dadliest Catch [PC]
I normally really hate games where the focus is “lol, you can barely control your character! hahaha.” I actually really liked this one; it isn’t hard to get the hang of it and it’s really funny and still enjoyable at the same time. I rarely actually felt annoyed at the controls. I had a ton of fun with it, even if it was a little short.
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Kirby Star Allies [Switch]
My complaints are very much the same as everyone else’s here; it’s a pretty okay Kirby game, but it lacks real challenge and is pretty quick. the real “star” of the show is playing the game with different characters, but since you can’t do that until after you play through as Kirby, by that point it’s either grown on you or hasn’t. The best part is the unique levels they made for the DLC characters, Gooey, Marx, Dreamland buddies, etc. Those are a ton of fun. If you like Kirby games, this one’s no Super Star but you’ll likely love all the attention to the free DLC characters and it’s not bad by any stretch.
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HOB [PC]
It’s a 3D, top-down Zelda style game with an emphasis on some platforming elements. The world is wonderful, definitely the Aesthetic with clockwork worlds that Spiral Knights wishes it could’ve had. I actually had a ton of fun with it. The secrets and exploration were great, combat is ehhhhhh but that’s not really the focus. It’s a good time, If you like Zelda but with some puzzle platforming and great atmosphere, check this one out!
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Poi [PC]
This is a Unity 3D platformer that attempted to brush off the Unity, and does an alright job with being mechanically tighter than most, but still has the Unity feel. Controls are a bit loose, could’ve used a lot of polish, but honestly this scratched the 3D platformer collect-a-thon itch for a bit and I actually 100% it. You have to love 3D platformers like Sunshine or Banjo Tooie to be able to like this, but if you do it’s a pretty fun romp.
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Princess Remedy In a Heap of Trouble [PC]
This is a fun, short bullet-hellish game with an old-school Atari aesthetic. It’s pretty fun, but honestly I like the mechanics in the free game better (though this has more content). It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s quirky (and kinda short), try out the free game and if you like that one give this a try! The main difference is the “date” mechanic, where people you heal can join you to give you a different special power from healing, to various kinda of bombs, time freezing, homing bullets, etc. Once you find one though, it’s hard to convince yourself to try something else.
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Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion [Switch]
This is Splatoon 2′s expanded hard/challenge mode. I’m a big fan; a few of the challenges are eh, but overall the aesthetic and branching map structure are super fun. The expanding on the lore and bonuses are also great; even though earlier I don’t normally go for the extremely hard, I found myself 100%’ing this. There’s a really tough challenge at the very end of all that, and I would say If you liked Splatoon 2, pick this up. It’s the expansion of Single Player that it deserves, though prepare for a few frustrating challenges.
... But now you have to pay for a terrible service to play it online so keep that in mind...
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Celeste [Switch]
This is a fucking great game and you should buy it. It’s a challenging (very hard) platformer in the line of super meat boy and maybe even I Wanna Be The Guy, but this does it extremely right. restarting is very quick, the controls are incredibly tight, and the levels are genuinely clever and fun.
The story is also really solid, and I can’t recommend the whole package as a solid game.
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Grow Up [PC]
This is the sequel to Grow Home, a game I’ve quick-reviewed a long time back. I liked the whole explore a whole planet and find some neat stuff, however the challenges are reliant on some weird procedural animations which don’t necessarily cooperate. It kinda overstays it’s welcome as a result, though the open nature of it is really fun. I have a hard time recommending this one, but it’s still a pretty solid romp even if it fights you a bit.
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Sonic Mania Plus [Switch]
Having 100% the base game which I highly recommend, I was expecting a lot more things to do with this. Encore mode is fun; I really like how you can change up your characters and have to adjust on the fly. The new special stages are tough but fun, but the pinball minigame is.. not good. Gets old pretty quick. additionally it doesn’t add much after encore mode. Might and Ray have abilities that meaningfully add some neat gameplay stuff, but after how great the base game was, I was expecting a little bit more. That being said, the DLC is a nice bonus for the base game and you can’t really go wrong with it.
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Lovely Planet [PC]
So I made a point to only play this game when I was drunk. The first few times I happened to be when I played it, so I stuck with it. This is a quick-restarting FPS with a focus on perfect shots and maneuvering to destroy all the target and get to the end as soon as possible.It’s hard as balls but really silly, so if you’re into perfectionist gameplay it’s worth a go. Probably not drunk tho.
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Ever Oasis [3DS]
IIRC, this came out at a time where there was a lull in Nintendo games, or at least 3DS games so this one was very much skimmed over. It’s a mix between a town management sim and Zelda-style dungeon crawling and resource gathering. On paper, and even somewhat in game, this is a cool idea; you get townsfolk who can go with you on missions, each with their own abilities, and what you get outside of the town is used to help expand you town, which will buff you/your townspeople's abilities to go further in dungeons.
In practice however... they don’t really mesh. The limitation of 1 item per party member and items being locked to specific people you need to find, going to dungeons is a chore as you need to find out which characters you need to actually play (often not your best). Meanwhile, time passes so quickly and your town’s shopkeepers run out of resources so quickly, it’s a full time job to keep up the town and then you run out. They mitigate this near the end game by have the ability to make parties out of townspeople who can’t own shops, which are very rare. The ending is good up until the last moment where they do a thing that doesn’t make sense to get some points for emotion but... It just doesn’t work to me.
All in all, it has a demo to show how a dungeon works, and if you like management AND what that dungeon has to offer, go for it. Otherwise, the setting and character design are great but not enough to really hold interest
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Q.U.B.E. 2 [PC]
The First game was Portal-esque in that you navigated the first-person Cube puzzle maze without any dialogue while manipulating the chambers with a variety of cube-spawning and extending abilities. You had to piece out and interpret the story yourself. This is the opposite; there’s a lot of dialogue, story set-pieces, and it’s bizarrely paced. You’ll get through most the game in like an hour, but then the last 2-3 chapters are the bulk of the game. Those are pretty fun, but the game is still incredibly short and I liked the tone of the first better. It’s short, it’s not bad, but it doesn’t really stand out.
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NES Classic 
So I dunno if I love or hate this thing. It’s great because it’s an official NES with controller and emulator and gives me the opportunity to play a buncha games I hadn’t before, but the controller cable is too small, the damn thing has trouble getting enough power (EDIT: This was actually my aparement’s faulty wiring, though if you aren’t supplying it with enough power the sound won’t work either), and this things existence is probably part of the reason we’ve not seen a proper virtual console support on Switch. You can hack it to be able to upload other ROMs to it, which is neat (I haven’t done that), but ultimately it’s worth looking at the games and asking yourself: Do I really want to play most of these? Do I really want to buy this when I’ve already bought most of them?
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SNES Classic
This is the same as above but more expensive with less games... But to me is a better value. It has a better selection of games (in my opinion), though they could’ve included some better ones. It still has the power issues (which are overcomable easily) but comes with 2 controllers with longer cables. Also StarFox 2 is a very nice game. I’d recommend this more than the NES Classic, but again, weigh what’s in it vs what you actually want to play if you can’t already
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WarioWare Gold [3DS]
This is a compilation game done right. It has the WarioWare charm and the voice acting adds even more to it. The microgame selection and adaptations are wonderful, and honestly I don’t have any complaints. It has changed everything to fit in one of 3 (+2 smaller ones) categories: Mash, Twist, and Touch (+ blow and short). These are normally separate by category, but near the end they mix and match and even do some fun mix-up with it in the very last rounds and bonus game modes.  Whether your first WarioWare or a veteran, this is in my opinion the best in the series, and I would suggest you give it a go.
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Monster Hunter World [PC]
So this one is hard. I really wanted to like it, and after playing Dauntless I thought I would. I even promised friends I would play it with them frequently and keep up but... between friends being able to play when I couldn’t and the game’s wonky controls and online issues, I was falling behind and getting frustrated. That’s kinda side stuff; if I really liked it I could’ve caught up. The truth is, I liked Dauntless better because while it was also very buggy, the combat was just a lot more straightforward and responsive. Monster Hunter seemed like Dauntless with a bunch of annoyances added onto it. There are tons of collectibles and recipes, weapon sharpness is entirely pointless when the monsters run anyway to give you breaks, the weapons I played seemed sluggish to attack with, and monster attacks were unclear a lot of the time. Everything just felt like a pain in the ass or waste of time to deal with and put a lot of focus on inventory management or grinding, and to me the core game you would do that for just wasn’t there.
Like I enjoyed the free roaming and exploration, but the fighting is just not for me and that’s the whole point of the free roaming and all that. I feel bad about not liking this after enjoying Dauntless, but I just am not into Monster Hunter and will be skipping the series from now on.
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Katamari Forever [PS3]
I got this one thinking it was a compilation game of all the Katamari games!
It was not. It’s actually the hardest Katamari game... Which kinda surprised me about how much of a dick they are when you start out since their controls are incredibly weird and unintuitive (you get used to them) and anything short of perfection will get the Kings to any where from passive aggressively imply you did poorly or just straight out call you awful and not to bother.
Here’s the part where randomly in the giant text post I just completely break whatever I was talking about because I’m 95% no one actually reads this so for shits and giggles the first person to reply to my tweet where I posted a link to the blogpost stating that they found this paragraph will get a free me replying back to that tweet saying “nice” back. An enticing gift amirite? Anyway continuing on.
That being said, it’s pretty fun after all that; there are one or two levels designed to be super annoying but the ones where you play the core game of quickly building your Katamari are for the most part very solid. This is for existing fans of the series, but i had a pretty good time with it after I got past the barrier to entry.
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Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: Ultimate Edition [PC]
I’ve talked about liking Shantae before on this blog; I mentioned that I liked Pirate’s Curse but the fact that side missions and collectibles were actually required for game completion. This Shantae looks great and all, but they completely tossed out the open-like nature and makes it a series of linear levels that you have to revisit at least 2-3 times to find the stuff that should’ve been off somewhere in a different series of areas and optional that’s really just slightly out of reach due to a power up you arbitrarily find after the level you needed to use it in ends. Dungeons are completely gone; the game literally is just “go right” and remember all the little things you couldn’t get to for when you have to backtrack over and over again.
That’s just the base game, and even with all that said it’s not a bad game, it just doesn’t really feel like a Shantae game anything other than aesthetically. I spent a few hours trying to 100% the base game, but after getting 99% and discovering I had to backtrack yet again to a snake merchant to trade for dances just to use them once and trade back, I just had 0 interest in getting the final percent. There are also a variety of different takes on the same campaign where you play as Shantae in different costumes with different abilities, Risky, or even Bolo + Skye + Rotty, and again those look fun but... I don’t really want to play the same game another 10 times.
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Dragalia Lost [Android]
This is Nintendo’s first jump into mobile with a new IP, and while it’s definitely banking hard on more traditional gacha mechanics (you can get 5 star items instead of Hero characters only), it’s definitely not bad. It’s pretty generous with stamina and resources, at least when you start, and my only major complaint is how you seem to hit a wall in terms of how long it takes to really progress about a week or so of playing every day in. And it’s quite a wall; there’s quite a lot of grinding needed once you get to chapter 6 (the current final chapter that really feels like just the end of a prologue (Edit, they recently added chapter 7)), so you really need to like it. The levels are kinda simple as well, though there’s a maze-like area in the story that’s a bit more clever so it’s a start at least. All and all, it’s worth a try, but if you don’t like the top-down brawler after the first world, it’s not worth forcing through gacha mechanics for; especially since after you complete normal story mode, all you’re going to be doing is grinding to get through hard and the summoning currency gets scarce fast. For reference, getting enough to be able to challenge the High Dragon quests and not immediately die in them takes 2 months of grinding specifically for that purpose if you use your stamina optimally, which you won’t because events are more fun anyway
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Overcooked 2 [Switch Download]
So this is actually really fun with a friend or 3; and that’s where it really shines. Sure, you can do it single player but it just doesn’t feel as fun. This is a sort of quick time-management game where you have to frantically run around cooking various recipes before they run out of time, to get a star rating at the end. There’s some bad levels, but the majority are really fun and it feels very fair even in single layer; I always think at the end regardless of the rank that I could’ve managed my dudes to do even better. The only real complaint is the loading times seem... unnecessarily long. Especially for restarting a level. It’s nothing too bad though.
Luckily this has online multiplayer, so I highly recommend picking this up on a platform that your friends have it on, ie Steam. I got it on Switch and in hindsight since I strongly dislike Nintendo’s online service I really wish I had gotten like a 2-pack on Steam. That’s not a complaint with the game though; I really liked it!
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Super Mario Party [Switch]
Probably the best Mario Party in a very, VERY long time. This is going to be a longer review. I played this first with Keewy and his roommates and we had a great time in every single game mode (except online).
The Mario Party mode is really good; they’ve shrunk the map and reduced how much stars cost to 10 coins, but 10-15 turn games can still take an hour to an hour and a half. This makes it a much simpler, easier to get mode, but the real star here is them bringing back the Ally & character dice mechanic from Mario Party Star Rush (had it’s good moments, but was on 3DS so that’s it for that). Each character can roll a normal 1-6 dice, but they also each have a unique die that has different numbers on it. These are for the most part balanced; character with higher numbers on their dice also have downsides instead of a 1. 0′s, losing coins, and in some cases gaining coins (because you still don’t move), and it adds a level of strategy to it where otherwise it would be just “roll and hop for the best. That’s what it is still, but sometimes you can choose. You can also pick up other characters who will help you in minigames, give you the option to roll their die, and add 1-2 spaces to your roll. It’s super fun.
The River Rafting mode is 4-player co-op, and it’s pretty fun as well your first run through. Not single player though; this very much shines with 4 people. However, because there are only like 8? 4-player co-op minigames, you see every game on your first run so it doesn’t really hold up after your first couple runs.
The dance mode is great; it’s like Rhythm heaven but Mario Party themed. Again, these minigames are really fun, but once you play through all 3 difficulties, which takes about 10 minutes, there aren’t any you haven’t played. 
2v2 is ripped straight out of Star Rush, which is a great thing. Again, don’t play this with a cpu on your team at least. As far as I can tell, even in Mario Party mode, CPU’s make the same brain-dead decisions on the boards regardless of their difficulty level. Anyway, this has the same 4 boards but opened up vastly; You now roll, combine it with your partner, then add any allies you may have picked up along the way’s 1-2 rolls and other bonuses. The point is to land on the starspace and buy it, and it’s just a good time to see the strategy involved with either going for the stars, allies, or secondary goals. By far the best alternative Mario Party gameplay style in a while (way better than Island Tour’s linear maps and 9-10′s Car mode), but again there’s only the 4 maps.
So I guess my only true complaint is that while there are a lot of minigames, they’re split so much over the different modes they don’t feel like a lot and you see repeats frequently. Additionally it would be nice to turn on/off the bonus stars at the end and other options involving maybe skipping some of the cutscenes (star moving, places changed, etc.). All in all, the best and most interesting Mario Party in a long, long time. I highly recommend it if you have a friend to pick it up with.
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Just Shapes & Beats
Got this game for a bit of random multiplayer. It’s a pretty fun, music based bullet hell game all about staying alive through the song while crazy stuff happens on screen. The story mode doesn’t overstay its welcome, but there’s also plenty of content and challenges for those who are so inclined, and only one of the levels felt utterly, bullshitingly unfair (which is really good with bullet hells) so It’s a fun time if you’re into top down bullet hells, and better with a friend in challenge mode
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Pokémon Let’s Go Eevee [Switch]
I could write a dissertation on this game and how it’s neither good or bad; it’s just kinda... there. Some aspects are incredibly disappointing; the capture mechanics are absolute garbage, forced motion controls are atrocious, player/npc animations and interactions are completely stilted and lazy, the world is very bland vs Sun and Moon, the performance in handheld mode drops frames sometimes which is unacceptable, there’s almost zero post game, and even more. It’s by all means an HD reskin of a Gameboy game running on their crappy 3DS engine.
But there’s a lot of good here as well; seeing pokemon in the overworld is amazing and should be the case in the series moving forward, partner pokemon (eevee) are fun and fucking adorable, riding pokemon is great, having fast captures makes chaining a really fun mechanic, Having some of the E4 and Gym leaders interact with you during your quest makes the world interesting, connectivity with go is very limited but still good, having only one pokemon be obtainable only once in the game is a welcome and frankly overdue change in the game, removing breeding/abilities/held items really streamlines the mechanics and makes the game more enjoyable in a lot of cases, and I could go on.
I’m not going to recommend it, but I mean if you liked any pokemon game you’re definitely not going to not have fun with this one, even if the randomness in the capture mechanics frustrates you to no end
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Super Smash Bros Ultimate [Switch]
So I mean it’s smash bros. Not much really to say about that, it’s pretty good. I kinda like Smash Bros not just for the multiplayer but the single-player as well, which is why Brawl is still my Favorite so take that as my approach here. The normal gameplay is fine, though the input buffer feels wonky at times and some characters are much harder to play against than others, which in combination with the sheer amount of characters makes it very difficult to get the hang of and counter accordingly, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just the barrier between playing casually and playing a bit more seriously feels sudden when randomly coming across characters that have inherent advantages from being wonky. Cloud for example seems to have a move for evertyhing, can spit out attacks very quickly, and if you try anything silly they’ll just charge a better move, and then randomly fighting a Ganondorf is like “I hope they don’t know how to read you because you can die at like 35 from a single fuck up”
The Single Player content though was... Disappointing. Not nearly as bad as Sm4sh, but it seems like they spent so much time putting as many characters and stages in the game as possible that they realized they wouldn’t have time to do old game modes the same way, so they made a system which allowed them to make custom smash battles with weird attributes and built the entirety of the bonus content on that. There’s really only adventure mode which is just a progression of Event Matches which gets somewhat stale and repetitive quickly, Mob Smash is just not really that fun past your first run or two, All-Star Smash is actually near impossible and not even rewarding, Classic does one or two cool ideas with routes but they clearly got lazy with a lot of characters there too, and the only platforming challenge in the game is the bonus level which takes 30 seconds and never changes.
Their Online mode is unacceptably bad and lacks options for random fights as well, and given that they’re charging for it this is just flat-out unacceptable. Buy it if you like playing Smash for the Multiplayer (which is almost everyone), but this is a hard pass if you were expecting a large amount of interesting content like Brawl’s Adventure mode had. Or are incapable of learning past a certain point, like me.
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Katamari Damacy Reroll [Switch]
So after having played Forever earlier in the year and hearing how much praise this got, I had very High expectations! Unfortunately the controls are still ehhhhh and the game is surprisingly short; I beat it over the course of a 4ish hour flight. It’s definitely a lot nicer to you than Forever is, but in terms of amount of content it’s not aged well. If you’ve not played it before, pick it up on sale, but as far as I can tell this outing doesn’t add anything new to the original and it’s just a straight up re-release
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Mario Tennis Aces [Switch]
So does anyone actually look forward to Mario Tennis Games? The past two have been husks of content and this one’s not really much better. The charging mechanic is interesting, but doesn’t feel that consistent or fair in some scenarios, but like was anyone waiting for this to get announced? Or is this just a “safe” series that sells okay and pads out the library for quick cash?”
It’s weird that they knew the Adventure mode was something fans really, REALLY wanted and touted it as some huge deal, even advertising it with a cool pre-rendered cutscene, and the whole mode with all challenges turns out to be at most a couple hours long, repetitive, and only actually has the two cutscenes (the 2nd being like 10 seconds). They made some silly RPG level up mechanic which didn’t feel like it made any difference, you can’t change your character so you’re really only learning how Mario plays, and it does a really poor job of explaining the different kinds of shots to you so it’s not even good for learning the game. I wasn’t expecting an experience worth telling for generations with the plot either, but even that gives up on itself; Luigi is possessed but he doesn’t do anything the whole game until you fight him, not even with the 3/5 power stones you have, and these power stones you spent the game collecting don’t do anything or matter because Bowser comes out of no where and “takes” the racket and power stones and challenges you to an admittedly fun boss fight. Not in a cutscene mind you, you’re just told this happens. It’s just lazy.
The game has some visual issues too; it’s missing any sort of stylistic flair and honestly just looks like an up-res’d Wii game, though with smoother models. Shadows flicker and cut through textures, and something weird’s going on with anti-aliasing that makes everything look blurry as hell too. I will say props for going to the effort of making tennis costumes for every character though; so that’s more effort than what went into Ultra Smash.
If you’re a huge, HUGE fan of Mario Tennis, go nuts. But uh, yeah this isn’t really worth your time for the price otherwise
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Starlink: Battle for Atlas (Starter Pack) [Switch]
Yeah so it’s rich coming from me, but honestly this game is only hindered by the physical toys. As far as I can tell you can only play as generic Mr. No Personality or Fox, and then you only have the two options for weapons. The game could get interesting combat-wsie with the combinations of ships and like I think 14ish different weapons? But with just the starter pack you run through what the game has to offer pretty quick.
It is interesting though how I very rarely play Ubisoft games and hadn’t played one since their open-world formula milking, but right away I could tell that it was a Ubisoft open world game. There’s a lot to do, a lot of planets to explore, movement is fun and surprisingly easy, combat is pretty straightforward and has potential, but the key thing is that there’s like 30-50 facilities on each planets with like 4 different types of objectives (3 of which are “kill the same bad guys immediately here”), and you can spend hours on one planets doing some minor variance on that same thing over and over and over.
It’s a pretty good start in terms of base mechanics for what would be a cool system for an open StarFox game (and I know it wasn’t trying for that) but the repetitiveness of exploring, frankly pathetic writing in terms of characters, and locking a lot of the interesting content behind toys detracts from the experience. It’s definitely not un-fun, but after clearing 4 planets and seeing that’s just what the game is doing I don’t have any interest in continuing.
At least other than to see StarFox, because Ubisoft did them better justice than Nintendo has in years.
Best Game I Played in 2018: Celeste
Easy choice here, Celeste has a wonderful story, looks gorgeous, plays like a dream and managed to be an incredibly challenging platformer that didn’t make me lose my patience ever, which is AMAZING considering how little patience I have whenever I fail at a game.
I was going to pick the best game that actually came out in 2018 but honestly it’d be between like 4 games that I had gripes with in some way or another, so i’m going to say Overcooked 2 is pretty fucking solid and leave this whole run on sentence in the heading font because why not it’s my dead blog I can do whatever the fuck I wan-
Anyway that’s it. Hope everyone had a good year
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6/11/17, 1:41am - post vacation
It’s been two weeks since I last wrote. Goddamn it feels like months.
The day after saturday.... So Sunday my family shows up at my place, mom immediately starts going through my shit until I start yelling and smacking her on the back of the head. Definitely not a good note to start off on.
The trip was pretty fucking great. Idk if they’re highlights but I just wanna ramble off a bunch of memories. Ate at Cracker Barrel on the way down because Trusten always felt left out when me and Tessa would go eat there with my dad. Little did he know that was my least favorite place he would take us, but it was a nice dinner nonetheless lmao.  The subject of my vasectomy became a huge topic all trip, partially because I had to bring up trying to keep my shit from getting infected whenever we would go swimming. Immediately jumped into the beach though it was fantastic. The water was beautifully clear and so warm, like taking a bath. Got to know my cousins a lot better. Christina is great, but also made me happy I’m not about to have a kid at my age. Got to see my aunts and stuff too, I can’t rag on her too hard because one has cancer, but they were talking about some pseudo-spiritualism-science for a long time and I just had to smile and keep my mouth shut for a while. “I’ve read it takes 48 days for the spirit of the deceased to reach the heavens. And it takes 48 days for a developing baby to be imbued with the spirit. Coincidence??” yeah idk lmfao. Great dance party with the fam though lol. Tessa’s looking unhealthily skinny but tremendously happy. I’m glad she’s back and done with her crazy dieting. Puts me to shame, tbh. Kinda makes me want to go a little harder and finish trimming off my fat but I’ve got more healthy plans I’m gonna start working on I think. Saw danni and her new gf, she cut my hair and gave me a new dye job. Was frustrated that I had to have so much cut off because I wanted to keep growing it out, but it Does look pretty fucking great and I have faith in her regardless lol. Smoked with her and grandpa and mom and talked about a whole bunch of shit. Tried to explain about how I treasure my personal time way more than investing my time into growing my wealth, had to try and do it without giving him shit for spending all his time trying to make money and not having any of it left to himself after the divorce. Also asked if he was gay and he said nah so that puts that to bed lmaooo. we went out to the Keys and that was kind of a disaster. I always kinda romanticized the thought of them when I was a kid, remembering like bright white sandy beaches and beautiful water, but there’s actually not much of that at all down there. The beach we went to smelt like rot. It was beautiful but covered in seagrass and very shallow, me and tessa and tav and trusten had a nice time of swimming against the current together joking about shit. Made a nice dinner of fried salmon and asparagus for my little brothers. Felt nice to cook again, should probably do more of that. Things boiled over with my mom when she kept fucking with the other food I picked out for us. Wasted a whole pack of bacon out of spite and so I flipped shit and decided I was done with them. Spent a day playing video games and tanning and laying around, was probably best to heal up my nuts anyway lol. We left the keys a day early because of it, but not before we got to watch this tenacious D video that they had. No wifi lol. Lessee. Came back up, saw gabbi and I think I like her new bf. They seem pretty good together, but I tried to warn them to not nitipick each other to death now that they’re moving in together. Good luck lmfao. Drank 9 beers and a cider with my uncle DJ and cousin Dom and his girlfriend was cute too, I shared wayyy too much about my life, told half my family about how I had my friends photograph me fucking at the old well, but ate some delicious fucking italian cooking and had a wonderful night. Smoked with DJ and mom and listened to their old stories of growing up as kids and getting into trouble for smoking and stuff. Oh and right before the keys I started binge watching Doctor Who. Since Katy went and watched every single episode of rick and morty in one night I asked her what her favorite show was that I could do. Doctor Who is a Little more involved, but I’ve gotta say it’s fucking incredible. Fell in love with it within minutes, had me giggling like an idiot all week. I’d stay up til like 7am watching episodes, get a few hours of sleep and then try to do whatever everyone else was though by the end of the trip it wasn’t much. The drive home wasn’t very eventful, me and mom split it, and it ended at a nice pit stop at dar and pa’s for some pancakes and a nap before I had to head home. Was trying to do a melee tournament and see katy and found out I needed to get my tire fixed, but then costco was going to take too long and so would melee so I just got back to greensboro and had a nice night of watching adventure time and a little sex and cuddles. Pretty fucking solid vacation despite the fighting with the fam, not gonna lie. Plus this is like the first time I look really not-fat in beach pictures, it’s kinda incredible.
So Katy... I spent a lot of time talking to Katy. We’ve at least snapchatted every day for the past month now, but haven’t had another drunk convo like when I was at the lake. After seeing her when I got back on monday I also spent the night with her again weds, and we’ve been bingewatching Adventure Time from the beginning and I took her out to eat at Smith Street Diner, it’s all been fantastic. But she couldn’t see me tuesday because she had another guy friend over (and another on thursday, but I was at work anyway lol). So I get kinda jealous that she has this beautiful ass kid and all these other guys wanting to fuck her, mostly because I don’t have other people or a very decent schedule to hook up right now, orr even get to go out drinking with her. Feelsbadman. It also feels like it’d be too much work/money to try to get a side chick anyway, and plus, melee is my real side hoe let’s not kid ourselves.. [speaking of which, the day I couldn’t see her I kicked ass at melee and won a little money, so that was pretty fucking great.] She’s amazing to spend time with and she gave me a toothbrush to keep in her bathroom and I love cuddling up with her beautiful body, but tbh she’s pretty standoffish whenever I try to get too intimate in person (mostly trying to kiss her too much), and when she refuses to send me a message back because she’s with somebody else I can’t help but shake this feeling like I’m not good enough for her... Feelings are stupid. I worry about going too hard too fast with her, but every time I’ve gone too far off the deep end she’s been able to laugh it off, which I think is incredible. Definitely should have scared her off with the shit I was saying about trying to make her fall in love with me (and not vice versa, for the record, because I still don’t have any feelings <:^D ) when I was 10 drinks deep, but somehow she even laughed that off. Plus she’s fantastically nerdy and exposed me to doctor who and this show is like my favorite shit right now lmao. I’ve just wrapped up the fourth season, which is about 37 hours of watching within the past two weeks.. It’s so fucking goooood, man. She told me all I had to do was catch up to her at the 12th doctor but I wanna go back and watch all the old stuff after that, too. so like 56/835 episodes done so far so good lmaoo. Anyway. Idk I just hope I get to spend a lot more time with her doing cool shit. I don’t know what I am to her, so I have no idea if this is gonna go anywhere, but it really doesn’t matter all that much to me anyway. I just enjoy hanging out with her, and she got me to quit smoking cigarettes completely, and now I’m watching this wonderful show instead of wasting my fucking life bored on twitch streams, and I’m even actually starting to get motivated to start exercising again. And the sex is greattttt lmaooo. So I want to spend as much time with her as possible. It’s pretty gay, not gonna lie, but that’s where I’m at right now. Idk why I’ve always needed some cute girlie to help motivate me to get my shit done, though. Personal flaws...
OH HOLY FUCK so this week was the most productive week ever though, because not only did I manage to get laid and place 3rd in melee this week, I also FINALLY got to take the exam for my RPSGT!! The day I was originally scheduled for was a shit show, I drove 2 hours out to fayetteville and found out they had fucked up my registration and I didn’t get to take it that day after waiting for hours to see if they could fix it, but luckily I was able to get rescheduled for the day after, so I left Katy’s place to go to Durham and took it at 8am thursday. I was fucking sweating a little, not gonna lie. They were asking me all sorts of questions about pediatric sleep medicine that I wasn’t quite prepared for, and some of the scoring questions were confusing to me, but I managed to pass! So now I finalllllllllly have made it to become a real sleep tech. Gonna get that fat raise and finally get to a point where I can stop worrying about money, it’s fucking phenomenal.
So I’m so fucking ready to get off work... Gonna go back to raleigh today and see fonzi and frankie and maybe johnny so that’s gonna be sick. There’s this new melee mod that came out so I’m thinking about getting a soldering iron and fucking with my controller, maybe I’ll actually be good at this game lol. Dunno when I’m hanging with katy next hopefully every day lmfaooo. I guess I’ll update when I update. 
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